World of Warcraft loses 1.3 million subscribers in 3 months

World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers are at their lowest in years. Activision Blizzard today revealed the world's largest MMORPG is now home to 8.3 million active accounts, down 1.3 million from January to March.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said the declines were mostly "from the East, but in the West as well" in the company's first-quarter 2013 financial statement.

World of Warcraft's subscriber base peaked above 12 million in 2010. It fell steadily after that, though was briefly pushed past 10 million once more when Mists of Pandaria released in September 2012.

An eight-year-old game losing some consumer interest is not surprising, but World of Warcraft looked unstoppable three years before. Kotick in a conference call with investors he expects the game to close out the financial year with even fewer subscribers .

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.